Non-contact measuring systems have existed for quite some time. However, present sYstems have several drawbacks which limit their use only to quality assurance tasks in a well controlled environment.
The major drawback of today's measuring system is that the measured body must lie motionless in the measuring area of the system in order to perform accurate measurements. Since the measuring system uses the acquired data, in a series of isolated measurements, to calculate the measured body's dimensions, any movement of the measured body relative to the measuring system will destroY the accuracy of the complete process.
Unfortunately, this is the case when trying to measure a part during the manufacturing process on the processing machine, on the conveyor line or even along-side the production line. The reason lies in the fact that the environment at the production line and on the machines is loaded with mechanical vibration and translations which prevent the implementation of the present measuring systems in production line applications.